


if i was right on that night, that a future was made

by seaqueen



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alex as "The Moscow Muscle", Alex is Mandalorian, Alternate Universe - Organized Crime, Alternate Universe - Star Wars, Bar fights, Career Ending Injuries, Gen, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, M/M, Nicky as "The Swede", Nicky is a Jedi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Russians as Mandalorians, Soft hockey boys being soft, Stargazing, Team as Family, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Tretiak is Mandalore and no one can convince me otherwise, mobsters are super creative obviously
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-17
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-11-15 02:09:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 7,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11221077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seaqueen/pseuds/seaqueen
Summary: A collection of unrelated drabbles based thematically on individual songs, of various characters and pairings (primarily Nicky/Ovi).





	1. Music Masterlist

**Author's Note:**

> Someone challenged me to do a first ten songs to come up on my writing playlist set of drabbles and.... I'm fairly certain they meant for that to be for my forum writing but this happened instead? So... oops...
> 
> Title from What About Everything by Carbon Leaf. All unbeta'd.

 

 _(1)_ **Footprints** \- _Tiesto_    
_(2)_ **Dying for You** \- _Otto Knows_  
(3)  **I Choose You** -  _Andy Grammar_  
(4)  **Uma Thurman** -  _Fall Out Boy_  
(5) **A Sky Full of Stars** _\- Coldplay_  
(6) **Victorious** _\- Panic! At the Disco_  
(7) **One Last Breath** _\- Creed_  
(8) **Little Lion Man** _\- Mumford & Sons_


	2. Footprints - NickyOvi

_Let’s take a trip to the edge of the night,_  
_Where the stars and the sun collide._  
 _Don’t wait a lifetime, it’s our turn_  
 _To put our footprints all over the world._

He all but purrs as fingers card absentmindedly through his hair, tilting his head into the light pressure seeking more of the contact. The person attached the hand chuckles quietly, but doesn’t stop with the scritching as he smooths hair back away from Nicky’s face. “Alex.” Nicky murmurs quietly, tilting his face without opening his eyes until he’s buried it against the rough fabric of Alex’s shoulder.

Alex rumbles softly against him but Nicky doesn’t hear the words, more sleepily pleased with the comfort of his mate and the gentle rise and fall of his chest. As well as the fact that Alex hasn’t stopped petting him like the cat he always teases Nicklas of being.

Finally, begrudgingly, he opens his eyes. When he starts to move away and straighten back in his seat Alex drapes one heavy arm around his shoulders to pin him in place, and drops a fond kiss against the top of his head. “No need. Still in air.” He says quietly, and shifts slightly until Nicky can recline better against him. “Still hour to LA.”

Nicklas hums to himself, not particularly caring about the coming game against the Kings the next afternoon and more concerned with if he can turn around and go right back to sleep now that he knows he doesn’t have to give up his pillow.

The plane is quiet, the soft sounds of the rookies clustered together around the same deck of cards they’d been messing with when the plane took off a counterpart to the engine’s hum; or Holts’s tired voice muttering at Jojo. Their team, settled and at peace.

Alex cards a hand through Nicky’s hair again, and this time he cranes up just a little until he can see the way blue eyes crinkle at the corners in that wide unfettered smile he loves so much; missing tooth and all. “Boys behaving. Sleep, Kolya.” Nicky grumbles but there is no heat in it. “Told you not to call me that Alex.” He only grins wider and makes no promises nor confirms the sentiment.

“Where are we?” Nicky asks instead, knowing it’s a losing argument. Alex only shrugs.

It doesn’t matter, not really. They travel more than they’re in Washington, or Russia or Sweden, it feels like sometimes during the course of the season. Road games after road game and flight after flight all blends together in a formless haze. They leave their mark for good or for worse, and then they leave.

But home is right here. Surrounded by the team that’s more of a family than it is anything else, this team that he and Alex have bled and breathed for, for more than a decade. This is their home. And too – home is the circle of Alex’s arms and the warmth of his smile like the sun breaking through the clouds as they ascend again and again towards the heavens.

Nicky turns his face back towards Alex, and lets the steady rise and fall of his chest lull him back to sleep with a smile on his face.


	3. Dying for You - NickyOvi

_Somebody told me you had given up on your smile_  
_That must mean you've been pretending now for a while_  
_To me you don't have to keep hiding away who you are_  
_Remember how we said together we would go far_  
_Summer nights, side by side_  
_Oh I know you remember how we laughed until we cried_

 

It’s been… fuck it’s been days since he’s seen Nicky last, and while that alone wouldn’t worry Alex the fact that the last time he’d seen him was the Swede’s retirement party does.

He knows this isn’t easy. No one really expects to leave before their time, to find that their number’s been called unexpectedly and everything you love is crashing down around your ears. Alex can’t even begin to process what Nicky’s going through at the moment but he knows that he doesn’t want him to be alone.

Maybe that’s selfish. It’s hard to tell. But Alex also knows his partner will drown himself in sorrow and in regret and guilt if he’s left to his own devices. Nicky hasn’t spoken to anyone about his injury and what it meant for his future since it happened, that Alex knows about, including the Russian himself. They’ve gotten better at communication in the years they’ve been together since the near disaster that was the start of their relationship; but there are still those times when neither of them knows what to say or when they think it’s better not to say anything at all.

Nicky generally falls in the second camp, when he’s hurting. As if he thinks Alex won’t notice so long as he shelters his pain somewhere deep inside him, as if he thinks Alex doesn’t crave every part of Nicklas Backstrom that he has to offer. And some parts he doesn’t, because well, he _is_ selfish. Especially about Nicky.

Alex lets himself in with the key that’s been hanging beside his own house key as long as Nicky has owned this place. It’s quiet, which is the typical timber of the place, but mausoleum silent in a way that weighs on him oppressively. There isn’t a light on anywhere that he can see as he pads through the familiar halls and past the kitchen as still as a tomb. He wants to call out, but the idea of shattering the unnatural silence unnerves him and he continues instead his solo tour of the house hoping he will simply stumble upon Nicklas.

The bedrooms are empty, and every room he moves through echoes more than the last in that same uncanny way that has Alex off balance.

Even when Nicky lives here alone and they more often spend their time at Alex’s house together, the house has always breathed of home. As if Nicky had imprinted himself and his presence on every room of the place as he went until the house breathed of him. But now… but now. Now it’s as if he’s never been here at all.

The unsettled feeling works its way under his bones and simmers in his chest the more of the house he walks and finds no evidence at all to suggest he isn’t the only living thing in it; until he finally finds Nicky outside on the back deck. Alex pauses in the door before he opens it – drinking in the sight of him for a moment. The slope of Nicky’s shoulders slants nearly vertical as if the Swede is trying to curl into himself and simply fade away, bent over and resting the bulk of his weight on one leg in deference to the bulky brace that wraps around one hip.

The brace is an ugly thing. In Alex’s eyes all that it represents – the seasons it’s torn away from them, the highs and the lows and the possibilities that once glimmered on the horizon. It represents the Cup they’ll never win together, the games Alex will play without Nicky to his left – are things he sees like laughing omens stitched in the plastine gleam. It presses against Nicky’s skin like it’s suffocating the life out of him piece by bloody piece, and maybe the comparison’s not that far off.

Nicky looks drawn and haggard as he leans on the deck railing staring off at nothing in the distance. He doesn’t turn when Alex crosses the space between them to lean on it beside him and follow the line of Nicky’s gaze. The fine lines of pain crease the corners of his eyes and there’s a heavy set to his lips, all things that the Swede had let no one else see even through the press conference and the team meetings.

Alex doesn’t know what it means that Nicky is letting him see it now, even after seven years together.

“I’m going home. To stay.” Nicky says in a deceptively flat voice as the silence stretches brittle thin. Alex’s mouth opens reflexively as if he’s going to say something but he can’t; because Nicky is already home and how is he going to go anywhere else? But he closes it before any words escape, flexes the muscles of his hands deliberately.

The air between them feels fragile, brittle, like a single misspoken word will shatter everything they’ve worked so hard to build.

Alex is suddenly, terribly, afraid.

“Home is here, Nicky.” He says finally, quietly; doesn’t turn to look at him and continues to stare unseeing out across the expanse of the backyard. “With me.” Alex adds in a smaller voice. Nicky doesn’t answer, but his hand falls to touch the brace at his hip and maybe that’s answer enough.

It’s been years since he came to America to play hockey and he still fumbles for the words he wants in English sometimes; finds they come without prompting in Russian until he’s got nothing to say no matter how badly he wants to to the man who means the world to him. “Nicky…” He trails off, frustrated and helpless. “I’m sorry.”

It’s such a useless thing, an apology. He’s sorry for the fact that Nicky’s career and his life as a hockey player has been cut short. He’s sorry for the brutality of the playoff series that had seen Nicky disappear from the ice after the second period, and no one had known he’d never return. He’s sorry, impossibly sorry, that there is nothing he can do for the man he loves so impossibly much but watch him grieve. Worst of all, an apology he will never voice, never cheapen either of them for it because it would only infuriate Nicky and make Alex feel guilty for things he cannot control more than he already is – he’s sorry that it was Nicky, and not him.

That he, unlike his mate, still has hockey.

 _Please_ , he wants to beg, _please don’t leave me._ But he doesn’t. Won’t. Not yet at least, because Nicky is still hurting and the wound still too new and raw; an exposed nerve. He reaches out instead to thread his fingers through his lover’s and hold tight; and in this at least Nicky does not turn him away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't actually note this at the beginning because I forgot, but all the drabbles stand on their own and are not related to one another/exist in the same universe unless directly stated! This is especially true regarding the fact that other pairings besides Nicky/Ovi might potentially crop up the more I write? This is my first foray into writing for this fandom and I'm testing out my wings a little bit before I attempt anything longer, though I do have a few ideas for longer stories.
> 
> <3


	4. I Choose You - NickyOvi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a Star Wars AU! My first and truest love T_T For some context, this takes place in the Old Republic Era - about 4000 years prior to any of the movies. For those of you who've played KOTOR, it takes place between the first and the second games, prior to the Jedi Purge. If you haven't played the games the basic gist is that the Mandalorians were manipulated by the Sith to attempt to conquer the galaxy and they were on the verge of succeeding, until a splinter group of Jedi rebelled against the Jedi Council to go and fight. The end result was that the Mandalorians were smashed to pieces and large swathes of their culture were destroyed, and basically all of the Jedi who went to fight disappeared into the Unknown Regions with their leader and haven't been heard from since. None of this is _really_ important since this is just a vignette but uh, I'll probably turn this into an actual story at some point so.
> 
> Also the Russians are Mandalorians because _seriously_ and Vladislav Tretiak is the _Manda'lor_ and no one can convince me otherwise.

_We can't give our two cents_  
_Of how tall we want to be_  
_We don't get an opinion_  
_On our ethnicity_  
_But the one we spend our life with_  
_That we get to choose_  
_And I choose, I choose you_

 

It’s been two years since the Republic retook Dxun and Onderon from the Mandalorians, a year since Revan threw the invaders back entirely and finished the war. But unrest still seethes in the Outer Rim. It’s why he’s sitting in a cantina in Iziz, nursing a mug of _ne’tra gal_ and cursing the Mandalorian who gave him a sweet tooth taste of the drink, listening to the gossip of the spaceport.

Unrest makes the galactic core nervous after the war, and the Jedi even more since the disappearance of Revan and his Jedi followers. Nicke doesn’t know that he buys into the Council’s paranoia that their former knight has Fallen but he goes where he’s told and does as he’s asked.

He’s the picture perfect image of a Jedi Knight – he’s polite and refined, ducks the limelight at every term and does his job quickly, thoroughly, and right the first time. He’s well-spoken and quick to smile. He’s no diplomat but that’s all right because he isn’t meant to be. Nicklas Backstrom is a Sentinel; blade a warm orange like the rising of a Tatooine sun.

There are others, who fight on the front lines and still others who broker peace. They serve the Galactic Republic proudly and loudly, in the eyes of that public. Nicke does none of these things.

He brings the light to the dark corners, ferrets out the injustice and drags it kicking and screaming from complacency to that light to burn it away into ash. Trades lightsaber for blaster and sword and blends into the crowds around him to move through unseen and ignored until he can emerge from cover and seize his prey by the scruff of the neck and sink the killing strike.

He remains unnoticed because he is unremarkable. He excels because he is forgettable and prefers it that way.

Nicke knows he is far from that image. And the least of that is the hulking Mandalorian shadow that lingers behind him slouching as if he can pass himself off as anything but what he is. And, force, if he doesn’t love the stupid oaf with everything he has.

The mug in his hands is only half gone but he’s weaving just slightly enough on his perch to given the impression of being far more inebriated than he is because people will talk within earshot of a drunk in a way they wouldn’t for a sober man. Even one kitted out to belong here, right down to the smuggler’s stiletto just barely peeking over the top of his turned down boots for those tight spots when a blaster simply wouldn’t do.

A hand drops on his shoulder, and Nicke would know that gauntlet anywhere and the weight of it without even having to look.

Somehow he always forgets just how large Alex is even without his armor on, Nicke thinks in dismay as he stares up at the wildly grinning Mandalorian towering over him. “Alex.” He sighs, and the other’s grin only widens, eyes flashing in delight.

“Nicky!” He crows, as if he is here by chance and not because he had tracked him down specifically. Alex knows better than to interrupt Nicky when he’s undercover working an operation if he hasn’t been let in on the story ahead of time but he isn’t this time, at least at the moment and therefore that might as well be an open invitation to his lover to drop in. At any moment he chooses to. Which he does. Frequently.

Nicke should protest. He _knows_ he should and he’s been telling himself for the past year that this time he will, this time he’ll push Alex away and send the bounty hunter on his way out of his life the way a Jedi is supposed to. It always ends the same way, in sweat slick limbs tangled up together and the sound of Alex’s heart beating beneath his fingertips and _mando’a_ muttered against him as if Alex thinks he can get away with telling Nicke what he needs to know without actually telling him and being forced to find the words in Basic.

Alex takes the seat beside him without prompting, props a boot up on the side of Nicke’s chair and leans into his space without turning an eye. Nor does he pay any attention to the fact that he’s the subject of more than half the cantina’s population’s sudden malice. They remember all too well the Mandalorians’ occupation; and Alex couldn’t scream _mando’ade_ more if he tried, even out of armor. But that’s always been Alex – he goes where he wants, and he does as he pleases in a refusal to allow his actions to be dictated by anyone besides himself or his clan.

Nicke envies him that certainty in his own skin.

He envies Alex a lot of things honestly, including that ability in his life to _choose_. In all his life, in all his years as a Jedi since the day he was taken from Ord Mantell and to the Temple on Coruscant he has followed the path set out before him by others at every turn. The Council, his former master. Nicke treads between the lines that dictate what Jedi should be.

The only choice he has ever made, and the thing he regrets least of all, is the Mandalorian happily yammering in his ear in a frenetic mix of _mando’a_ and basic, stealing what’s left of the ale in his mug to drain it off and then grin at Nicke with foam clinging to his beard.

There’s no response to that except to smile helplessly fond, and drag him in for a kiss.


	5. Uma Thurman - Nicky

_The blood, the blood, the blood of the lamb_  
 _Is worth two lions, but here I am_  
 _And I slept in last night’s clothes and tomorrow’s dreams_  
 _But they’re not quite what they seem_  
  
_I can move mountains_  
 _I can work a miracle, work a miracle_  
 _I'll keep you like an oath_  
 _"May nothing but death do us part..."_

Not Again. _Not again._

Two words, like an endless refrain pounding in time with his heart beat loud in his ears over and over until it drowns out every other thought. Not after last year, after the crushing disappointment of the second round, against this _same fucking team._ He refuses, refuses with every bone and breath and beat of his heart, to walk away the same way. It’s been too many years and too many heartbreaks to deal with and he will not take one more.

From the locker room to the on ice warm ups, from the methodical wrap of tape around his stick to the roar of the crowd in the Verizon Center

This isn’t 2016.

It doesn’t matter what happened before or what’ll happen after – this moment is Nicke’s. Is Alex’s, and TJ’s and Braden’s and all of the rest. It’s _theirs_ , and he will not let the Pittsburgh Penguins take it away from them ever again. It belongs to the Washington Capitals and their achievements, their heart and their soul they have given time and time again on the ice to come away in disappointment and in agony of a too long summer.

The ice is slick beneath his blades, and he digs against it in long sweeping strokes to fly down the boards and around the net, watches Holts settle in the net and the team circle again and again. They’re his, every last one of them.

There’s a whistle, and he slides towards the faceoff dot. Mind clear of everything except the beat of his heart loud in his ears.

This isn’t 2009, or 2016. It’s not any year that’s come before it and it’s not any year that’ll come after it either. This moment is now and this is their year. It has to be. Nicke’s blades bite the ice as he crouches, settles low and solid in a position he’s taken thousands of times; and breathes out.

Crosby settles across from him, face is set and serious, touches the ice. Nicke wraps a second hand around the stick -

_Not again._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #still bitter about the second round


	6. A Sky Full of Stars - NickyOvi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is 1000% not the song I was supposed to do next tonight, it was on the list for like five days from now but. I'm in bumfuck nowhere New Hampshire because I'm picking up some cash running commerical rigs this summer and I just spent a solid two hours outside on the grass staring at how amazingly fucking gorgeous the stars are out here so.
> 
> Have some soft hockey boys stargazing.

_'Cause you're a sky, 'cause you're a sky full of stars_  
 _I'm gonna give you my heart_  
 _'Cause you're a sky, 'cause you're a sky full of stars_  
 _'Cause you light up the path_  
  
_I don't care, go on and tear me apart_  
 _I don't care if you do, ooh_  
 _'Cause in a sky, 'cause in a sky full of stars_  
 _I think I saw you_

 

It’s rare they get such stolen quiet time during the season, let alone together, the ability just to lay still and settle without being constantly and consistently on the move or preparing for the _next_ move. But they have an off day tomorrow.

It’s Nicky’s idea to go somewhere outside the city, away from DC and all the obligations that weigh heavy on their shoulders as they grind through the latter half of the season trapped in the log jam that is the top of the Metro standings. Alex is in fervent agreement. What he hadn’t expected was this, the pair of sleeping bags his Swede had tossed in the back of the car and driven straight out of Arlington for the sleepy back roads winding through Virginia’s forestry.

It’s easy to forget that there’s more to the area they live in than just the District, given that most of their time is consumed by the area or traveling away from it; and time they might have to explore more outside the city would be during the summer when they both return to their home countries. Yet it doesn't surprise him in the least that Nicky seems to know where he’s going without the need for directions. It doesn’t take him long to gui de them into a state park just as the sun's going down, and Nicky spends fifteen minutes talking to a ranger to get them a campsite as he's the less likely one to be recognized and therefore streamline the process, before they're rolling again farther into the woods. The site spills out onto meadow, and Alex isn't even out of the car yet before Nicky's got his head tipped back to stare upwards and Alex is mesmerized for a moment at the way his hair is long enough again to curl along the muscles of his neck exposed by the neckline of his shirt.

Alex pouts when Nicky firmly takes his phone away from him and locks it in the car. “No.” The Swede says in a tone that brooks no disagreement, but that’s never really stopped Alex before and Nicky knows that very well. “No phones, no instagram, no nothing until tomorrow morning. The team and everyone else can get along without us for twelve hours.” Alex just looks at him until Nicky sighs. “Holts is in charge.” Alex smirks.

But the idea of being cut off from the world and from everything that isn’t Nicky is appealing in a way that he hadn’t anticipated – being in Alex’s house with their phones off and laptops closed theoretically accomplishes that same goal but there’s something different about that same concept out in nature and Alex can very much get behind the idea of the fact that Nicky is currently in the process of zipping the two sleeping bags together into one. This suggests sharing it and he is on board this plan.

“I’ve always loved the stars.” Nicky says wistfully, tipping his head back to stare at them and Alex is mesmerized by the brilliance of the moon’s light playing across the sharp lines of his cheekbones. “That one there, that’s Mars.” Alex follows the line of his arm out to the slightly redder pinprick of light just visible over the tops of the trees.  “And above it, that cluster is Pleiades.”

Alex brightens, recognizing the name. “Used to use for sailing.” He says, pleased with himself. “Also seven sisters. Lay down Gaileo and can tell me stories for once. Nerd.” Nicky sputters at that, protesting back that _he_ isn’t the one with an advanced degree because he was _bored,_ but Alex is too smug about his jab to care as he harries the blond down onto where the sleeping bag is spread across soft grass. Unceremoniously he drops himself to flop across Nicky’s chest, tucking himself under the Swede’s arm and propping his head on his chest until they can both stare up at the sky.

Every star is like a glittering jewel out here, far enough away from the city that the lights are a little less enough to see some of the smaller stars, flung against the black velvet of the sky.

“That one’s Corvus, the crow.” His voice is warm and thick with affection as he points with the arm not draped over Alex’s shoulders at the sail shaped constellation to the southeast. “The story goes that Apollo placed the crow in the sky as a warning against untruths after he lied to the god. About ripe figs, of all things.” He’s content to let Nicky talk, as he seems unusually inclined to at the moment. The media likes to paint Nicky as quiet, as standoffish and aloof; but it’s far from the truth. They don’t get the real Nicklas Backstrom because he has nothing to say to them.

This is Alex’s Nicky, comfortable and relaxed in his own skin around people he cares about. The intensely private man who has no use for the media and their stories when he’d much prefer to simply be about hockey and his family, all twenty-odd ketchup buying idiots of them, who has more than enough to say when he chooses to.

Nicky’s voice is a soft lull, lapsing between the melodic syllables of his native tongue and back into English as he weaves in and out of various stories, and Alex wavers barely on the edges of wakefulness. The words wash over him without true meaning or sinking in in the slightest – enjoying more the cadence of his lover’s voice and the clear contentment all but radiating off him. Nicky’s heartbeat is steady and solid beneath Alex’s cheek, and his eyes drift closed unbidden.


	7. Victorious - NickyOvi

_I'm like a scarf trick, it's all up the sleeve_  
_I taste like magic, waves that swallow quick and deep_  
_Throw the bait, catch the shark, bleed the water red_  
_Fifty words for murder and I'm every one of them_  
  
_My touch is black and poisonous_  
_And nothing like my punch drunk kiss_  
_I know you need it, do you feel it_  
_Drink the water, drink the wine_

“You’re dead.”

Nicky’s voice is soft and silken in his ear, a rumbling purr that sends a shiver down Alex’s spine in a mixture of arousal and instinctive fear both. It’s evocative of a predator’s growl – eliciting images of blood soaked hands dipped in scarlet and shark sharp grins, from the lips of a golden haired pretty boy who looks nothing like the snake in the grass he is.

Alex smiles.

With an eel like grace that belies a man of his size, Nicky flows into the seat beside Alex; and the pinprick of a stiletto blade disappears from where it had been pressed against his ribs. Alex hadn’t even noticed it until Nicky spoke and he knows that if his lover had truly been trying to kill him he would never have felt it at all until it was too late. There is a reason Nicky’s the ghost after all.

They’re a pair all right – The Moscow Muscle and The Swede. Neither of them fit entirely right in the organization, and haven’t since they came here. They won’t, but it’s never bothered them.

Wordlessly, Alex pushes the glass in front of him towards Nicky; who knocks back the vodka in one go with only a twist of his lips in a slight grimace to give away that he feels the burn at all. Alex is weirdly proud of that. Sweden might be part of the vodka belt but they aren’t Russian; and he’s spend the last ten years teaching Nicky to drink like one.

Alex takes a moment to study his lover as Nicky raises a hand to order another drink from the bartender. His hair is neatly pushed back behind his ears the way he prefers, and his suit is impeccable as always. He has no idea where the knife went and how Nicky made it vanish so quickly but he’s learned not to ask these kind of questions, or to question where half the sharp bladed things come from when he strips the other man out of his thousand dollar suits to press hungry teeth against his skin.

The thought makes him bare his teeth in a feral smile, because he knows that if he were to do such a thing right his instant he’d find those teeth marks bruised purple over pale skin like a claiming brand sunk straight down to Nicky’s bones.

There’s a tiny spot of red on the left cuff of Nicky’s white dress shirt. Barely there, unnoticed if Alex were not looking for it. Unremarkable, if it were not Nicky. “You made a mess.” Alex says gleefully, because this is material for chirping for at _least_ a week. Nicky never makes a mess.

The man himself turns back with his whiskey in hand, and a suspicious look in his eyes. “What.” It’s not a question.

Alex takes this as an excuse to lace his fingers through Nicky’s, and use that to turn the man’s wrist over so the tiny spot of red is visible. “So messy. You reputation shot now, everyone gonna know.” The evil eye he receives in return for this would be more terrifying if Alex had not woken up this morning to Nicky drooling on his shoulder with hair sticking up in all directions. His gleeful smile doesn’t fade one bit, but he does drop his voice. This might be what passes for a safe bar for men in their line of work, with generously paid to look the other way staff who are in general connected to the family, but caution is a thing that they have spent more or less all of their lives engaging in. Some more than others.

“Terrible hit man. Getting sloppy.” Alex adds, and Nicky removes his hand from the grip to dip a finger into the water glass of the man sitting on the other side of him and dab at the offending blood spot. The man in question turns with a thundercloud on his face opening his mouth to protest; but catches sight of the look in Nicky’s eyes to hurriedly turn back around without saying anything. It’s not an unfamiliar occurrence. Nicky’s dead eye _I will kill you_ look is terrifying, even to Alex.

They take their drinks and migrate towards one of the booths in the back, draped in shadows and more privacy than a seat at the bar can give them. Not that anyone will bother them, if the pattern of the last few years holds true. Alex immediately drapes himself in every possible way across Nicky, who only sighs, incredibly put upon.

Nicky strips out of his suit jacket and settles the lines of it neatly away from the potential of damage, then rolls the sleeves of his dress shirt up to his elbows. Alex admires the fine musculature of his forearms this exposes, and leans down to nip at Nicky’s throat in appreciation.

“Fucking faggots.” Comes a sneering voice thinly disguised as an aside to a companion, and Nicky lifts his head like a big blond meercat, nostrils flaring at the scent of blood in the water. There’s a sudden hush behind the idiot but he doesn’t seem to notice, or take the sign of a double handful of mafiosos looking uneasy as a bad omen that he’s crossed a line. Alex isn’t stupid enough to think that any number of people in a highly traditional culture like The Family are fine with the relationship he has with Nicky, but those that aren’t also aren’t stupid enough to say anything about it.

Not with the roles both men play for the family, and the reputations they carry. And that rumor that has yet to die about what happened to the last man who was foolish enough to say anything. Alex had plans, but the man in question had vanished seemingly into thin air before he could enact them.

Nicky had looked impossibly pleased with himself for a week and the Family's guard dogs had been disturbingly well fed. 

Alex looms up to his full height as he surges to his feet and knocks the table aside, all but snarling over Nicky’s shoulder at the man foolish enough to tangle with them. His lover puts a placating hand in the center of Alex’s chest and he subsides to a barely leashed tremble.

“Pardon me, but I’m not sure I heard you correctly the first time. Would you care to repeat your words?” He says easily, but with the impossibly enunciated syllables that send a hot flash of arousal surging through Alex that nearly bowls him over because he knows exactly what kind of violence usually follows that tone. The newcomer, unluckily for him, does not.

“I said, what a pair of fucking faggots. Why don’t you get lost, your kind isn’t welcome here.” Nicky smiles, and this time the man takes an instinctive step back, the first flicker of uncertainty crossing his face as he gets a glimpse of Nicky’s face. Even more, when he looks up and has to continue looking up to take in Alex and the violence that lurks beneath his skin like a burning flame.

“Perhaps this is a conversation that might be better continue outside?” Nicky asks in a deadly soft voice, rising to his feet and pushing lightly at Alex’s chest to get him to move. He does obediently, his attention split between the threat and his lover himself; utterly in command of his surroundings and comfortable in his own skin. Nicky rescues his jacket from where it’s fallen when Alex knocked over the table, sparing a disappointed look for the Russian at that. He shrugs.

 The man seems to have finally wised up the danger he’s put himself in and realized he’s engaged the apex predators in the room; looks caught and chest heaving like a buck run down to exhaustion the moment before the wolf’s jaws close around its neck. But there’s nothing for it but to be herded out by Alex as Nicky follows.

He barely blinks before there’s a flash of metallic shine under the fluorescent lights of the alley, and Nicky’s blade is painted scarlet as he buries it between the third and fourth rib of the man’s chest without hesitation.

“Ruin my fun.” Alex says sulkily, as Nicky cleans the blade on the dead man’s shirt and makes it disappear again. “How I suppose to prove I big bad wolf this way?” He adds, making a face as he kicks the body with one heavy boot. “Very rude Nicky. Bad manners.”

Nicky rolls his eyes. “Next time you can defend my honor. Our honor. Whatever.” Alex is on the verge of replying to this clearly insincere offer when he’s pinned to the wall instead and Nicky’s grinding their hips together as he sinks his teeth into Alex’s neck.

Murder always gets a fire burning in Nicky’s belly, heats the cold Swedish blood to searing  heat; and Alex is deliriously happy to let himself be consumed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As an interesting note, there actually isn’t a significant mob presence in DC so I’ve just made one up here because hey, it’s my AU I can do what I want right??? But for those curious – unlike many of the East Coast’s largest cities, DC has never been significantly represented as a hot bed of Mafia crime and there’s a lot of differing opinions as to why. Which isn’t to say that the city doesn’t have more than its share of crime and minor kingpins, but there’s nothing on the (organized crime) scale of the five families in New York or the various other organizations that exist in places like Boston or Chicago. 
> 
> The closest thing was probably Cottone’s short lived operation that dealt in narcotics back in the 70’s, but.


	8. One Last Breath - ZhenyaSasha

_I'm looking down now that it's over_   
_Reflecting on all of my mistakes_   
_I thought I found the road to somewhere_   
_Somewhere in His grace_   
_I cried out heaven save me_   
_But I'm down to one last breath_   
_And with it let me say_   
_Let me say_

The lights of Moscow burn incandescent outside their window, visible through where the gauzy curtain drifts slightly where the window is propped open in hopes of catching a breeze. There’s a snatch of music from somewhere – it runs counterpoint to the soft moan that escapes from the man sprawled out on the bed

“Zhenya.” Sasha whispers, pressing the syllables into his lover’s skin with kisses that trail feather light down the length of his jaw; curl around the line of it and scrapes his teeth over the tendon in Zhenya’s neck in the way that makes the other man shiver. He’s reduced him to helpless choked off noises now; broken clipped sounds that might’ve been words once before they’d gotten lost in the clutch of Zhenya’s throat. He smiles against overheated skin, lifts his head with crinkled eyes in a warm look.

Reverent fingertips trace every rippling muscle of Zhenya’s back and Sasha can’t help but lean in again from where he straddles the center’s thighs to follow that with his tongue and coax the same broken sounds from his lover.

Stolen moments and stolen memories – these are the sum total of their relationship. These hidden away things that Sasha can bring out in quiet moments and turn over and over again in his mind like a well-worn photograph gone soft at the edges. Pittsburgh and Washington are not so far apart but it might as well be continents with how often they can take the time from over full schedules. Sasha would shout his heart from the rooftops if the world would let him, shower Zhenya with all the love he has to give where everyone can see if he was allowed.

But he can’t. They can’t. They are Russian and they are hockey players, their families call the motherland home year round; they play for the national team and they love her too much to lose her even if Russia would forsake them if she knew them. If she _really_ knew them.

Moscow is bright and brilliant outside the window, but inside it is sacred. Stolen time, and beautiful.

Zhenya breathes something that might be Sasha’s name, a whisper of encouragement, and he redoubles to his task of taking his lover apart down to his base parts the way he can when they have the time. Tongue and teeth follow hands until he reaches the swell of Zhenya’s backside, and Sasha dips along the corded muscle to bite hard enough that it’ll leave a mark.

He smirks at the yell it provokes from his partner, and at that utterly wounded look Zhenya gives him, admiring the outline already visible before he runs fingertips across it possessively. It turns into a warm caress to slip until he can spread broad hockey callused palm across that same muscle before Sasha pulls Zhenya’s cheeks apart and dips his head to taste him.

The first brush of tongue is electrifying, like a cattle prod applied direct to the spine and Sasha will never, ever be tired of this man. Not when Zhenya wears everything he is so proudly on his face and on his skin and Sasha has never had to wonder who and what they are – even when they’d been fighting, when things had gotten so bad between them, he was a phantom ache set somewhere deep in his chest. They fought because they knew each other so well, they fought publically and loudly because neither of them knows how to keep it bottled up and tucked away.

Sasha coaxes that same rush of pleasure from the drawn bowstring taut of his lover until Zhenya sobs his name as he grinds against the bedsheets; before Sasha covers the other with his body to press him against it.

One of their phones is ringing, insistent and slicing through the isolation they’ve carved out for themselves; but neither man makes any move to answer it. The rest of the world takes and takes enough from them – Sasha will not allow it to steal this moment too. He will not be rushed.

They have all the time in the world, or so he pretends; at least for this moment.


	9. Little Lion Man - NickyOvi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sequel to [this drabble!](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11221077/chapters/25094862)

_Weep for yourself, my man,_  
_You'll never be what is in your heart_  
_Weep, little lion man,_  
_You're not as brave as you were at the start_  
_Rate yourself and rake yourself_  
_Take all the courage you have left_  
_And waste it on fixing all the problems that you made in your own head_

Sweden is quiet.

It’s not that America is louder, objectively, but there is a frenetic sort of energy that undercuts just about everything and it sometimes felt difficult to even catch a breath or quiet everything else around him. Even in living in Arlington away from Washington’s rat race it had still never felt as if the world slowed at all.

It was a relief at first, after the official announcement of his retirement and all the firestorm that came after before he could finally leave Washington and escape all the memories that threatened to choke him. Between the press conference and exit interviews, the retiring of his number and saying good bye to all of his teammates, behind telling _Alex_ good bye –

It has not been a kind five months.

Being home has helped. In some ways it feels like any other summer and that when the days start getting longer again he’ll pack up his things and leave for the season; but then his hip will remind him or the brace will stare him dead in the face and laugh and say _not this year little Swede. Not ever again._

The closer the season gets, even if he has gone out of his way to avoid everything hockey related since he has returned to Gävle, the more restless he gets. It’s an itch beneath his skin that won’t settle and Nicky knows it has as much to do with the way he’d left Washington as it did the fact that he wasn’t going back.

He should have had at least another half decade of hockey. He _deserved_ it, and yet fate had cruelly ripped it out of his hands and cast him out.

Nicky had needed to leave then, even if it had not been the most glorious of exits or handled well, because everything about Washington reminded him too much of what he lacked and what was slipping out of his fingers like sand through a sieve. Even Alex, because the sight of Alex at his side is too ingrained in every fiber of what makes up Nicklas Bäckstrom. They hadn’t played much on a line together there at the end – but Alex would always be his wing, in hockey and in life.

Nicky thinks he’d forgotten that last bit, in his pain.

Giving up hockey shouldn’t mean giving up Alex and now, too late, Nicky realizes that is exactly what he’d done. He’s played the conversation over and over again in his head that they’d had on the deck and wondered why Alex hadn’t stopped him, even as he knows exactly why. Why Alex hadn’t said anything even as Nicky told him he was leaving and leaving _him._

The glass in his hand shatters when he squeezes too tight, and he swears as he opens his palm to let the shards fall away. Inspecting his hand for damage yields only a shallow cut across the heart and head lines of his palm. Nicky snorts. As if that isn’t the world’s most obvious metaphor right now.

He uses up the last of the gauze carefully bandaging it, and given that he’s going to need to change that in a few hours decides to go and get more along with other groceries he’s been needing; given that he has nothing else to do.

When he opens the door, Alex is standing on the other side.

He shoulders his way inside and past Nicky without a word; a thundercloud on his face as he storms past and then comes to a stop and stands in the middle of the entryway. Nicky would stop him, or say something – but he’s paralyzed by shock and indecision both. He doesn’t actually want Alex to leave. He’s missed him with every fiber of who he is

And the misery and memories and pain he expects are there true enough. But all of it is colored by loneliness.

“No Nicky.” Alex cuts him off as he goes to speak, grimly solemn in a way he often isn’t. “My turn. You not let me have say last time so now you listen to me.” Obediently he shuts him mouth, eyes shadowed.

When it’s clear Nicky isn’t going to interrupt him Alex continues. “You not want be near hockey? Fine. You not stay in Washington, okay. Understand. But you not get to leave _me_ Nicky. Not after so many years. We are team. Not Caps team but Nicky and Alex team and you don’t get leave.” He looks mulish and _oh,_ how had Nicky ever thought he could stand to be away from this man?

He can’t.

“Alex.” Nicky starts, breaks off because the words fail him.

“Jag älskar dig.” Alex says determinedly as if that is the answer and maybe it is. His accent is atrocious and Nicky can’t stop the helpless smile that it provokes before he’s stepping forward and into the circle of his lover’s arms.

“я люблю тебя.” Nicky says back because that’s true and it has always been true.

That seems to be the extent of the conversation for the moment because Alex disappears into the kitchen to make tea and Nicky wanders in behind him – it’s a sight that’s all too common even if not here necessarily; and Alex has on more clothes than he usually had when he’d stood half-awake in their kitchen with early morning Virginia sunlight painting him golden.

Nicky leans against the door frame silently, watching him.

The silence is companionable and eased with Alex in it, instead of the lingering aura of regret that has hung around him since he’d come in the beginning of the summer. They settle on the couch as Alex makes faces at Nicky’s lingonberry jam and gives him pointed looks for not having any others and being forced to settle for jam-less tea.

No one says anything for a few moments, and Alex knocks their knees together before he puts his own cup down on the coaster. Nicky hides a smile at that. One too many raised eyebrows of silent judgement had finally taught the Russian the merits of coasters and not leaving rings on furniture, it seemed.

“Leonsis asked me if I would come and coach, before I left.” Nicky says quietly, and Alex sucks in a breath but doesn’t speak. He wants to though. Nicky can see it in his eyes and the barely leashed wildness that has always lurked beneath his lover’s skin.

It is one of the things he’s always loved most about him. Alex is who he is unreservedly and completely, makes no apologies for who he is. But it has always baffled him how everyone misses this side of Alex, the intense and deeply devoted man who cares _so much_ for those he loves. It’s a side Nicky hoards carefully to his chest. “I told him no, then.” This time Alex can’t quite contain himself and leans closer, hands clasped tightly together between his knees.

“Then?” Alex breaths carefully, as if the word might shatter this tentative thing.

Nicky unbends just that much more, resting the tips of his fingers over the pulsepoint of Alex’s wrist. “Not this season Alex.” He says softly. “But… maybe next year I’ll come.”

Alex’s smile is a soft thing, the missing tooth poking out from behind red lips. “Then you come home, Nicky.” He nods, sharply; holding the Swede’s gaze implacably.

“Then I’ll come home.” Nicky echoes, and he means every word.

 


End file.
